Three Tales of Non-Werewolf Shape-Shifters

Three Tales of Non-Werewolf Shape-Shifters by Simon Cary Enoch

MM Public Relations, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Everyone is familiar with the idea of the werewolf, next to vampires they are the most popular and iconic supernatural horror creatures. But did you know that the idea of humans shape-shifting into apex predator animals isn't just confined to wolves or the European continent?

Around the world in every culture there are legends & lore of human shape-shifters, meaning a person or being with the ability to change their physical form at will, who turn into animals such as, lions, tigers, bears, and even hyenas! So here are three true accounts of non-lycanthrope shape-shifters.

Night of the Were-Tiger

In "Werwolves", Elliott O' Donnell passes along a story told to him by a man known simply as "Mr. K" who witnessed first hand a were-tiger transformation. While traveling in India, Mr. K encountered stories that the worship of a local tiger deity bestowed upon the devotee the ability to transform into a tiger.

Curious, he decided to investigate it himself. Deep in the jungle, he encountered a skinny and weak looking young boy, worshiping the tiger god in a magic circle. He was knelt down chanting an incantation beneath a large kulpa-tree. A shadow swooped down and the jungle became quiet. The now seven-foot were-tiger gave chase, screeching and howling. Mr. K ran faster than he ever had and narrowly escaped, but that night an entire family was killed in the village.[1]

Curse of the Were-Vixen 

Victoria_Borodinova via Pixabay 

In China and Japan there are were-foxes a.k.a. were-vixen. In one account a monk walking through a graveyard by moonlight witnessed a fox putting old bones and a skull upon its head. It then changed into an alluring and sensuous woman. She sat by the roadside until a passerby came and she told him a sorrowful story. The man asked her to mount his horse and ride away with him but before the were-vixen could, the monk jumped from behind a gravestone and spoke an incantation that caused the woman to resume her fox form. Nothing remained but the dry bones, skull, and the now dead fox.[2]

Horror of the Were-Lion

In Africa we find legends & lore of were-lions and were-hyenas. Here is the curious case of the "Pondoro" or were-lion.

"Stopping one afternoon at a Kebrabasa village, a man, who pretended to be able to change himself into a lion, came to salute us. Smelling the gunpowder from a gun which had been discharged, he went on one side to get out of the wind of the piece, trembling in a most artistic manner, but quite overacting his part. 

The Makololo explained to us that he was a Pondoro, or a man who can change his form at will, and added that he trembles when he smells gunpowder. 'Do you not see how he is trembling now?'

We told them to ask him to change himself at once into a lion, and we would give him a cloth for the performance.

'Oh, no,' replied thy: 'if we tell him so, he may change himself and come when we are asleep and kill us.'

Having similar superstitions at home, they readily became as firm believers in the Pondoro as the natives of the village. We were told that he assumes the form of a lion and remains in the woods for days, and is sometimes absent for a while month. His considerate wife had built him a hut or den, in which she places food and beer for her transformed lord, whose metamorphosis does not impair his human appetite. No one ever enters this hut except the Pondoro and his wife, and no stranger is allowed even to rest his gun against the Baobab-tree beside it: the Mfumo, or petty Chief, of another small village wished to fine our men for placing their muskets against an old tumble-down hut, it being that of the Pondoro.

At times the Pondoro employs his acquired powers in hunting for the benefit of the village; and, after an absence of a day or two, his wife smells the lion, takes a certain medicine, places it in the forest, and there quickly leaves it, lest the lion should kill her. This medicine enables the Pondoro to change himself back into a man, return to the village and say, 'Go and get the game that I have killed for you."[3]

If you enjoyed these stories I know you will love my book Legends & Lore of Werewolves it contains more tales of were-creatures and detailed stories and history about real werewolves themselves. You can even read it for FREE with Kindle Unlimited! And if you enjoy it, please do me the favor of reviewing it, it will help the book be noticed by a wider audience. Thank you for reading!

Sources: 

1.) Werwolves by Elliott O' Donnell Chapter 2

2.) Human Animals by Frank Hamel pgs. 89-90

3.) Livingstone, D. & Livingstone, C. (1865) Narrative of an expedition to the Zambesi and its tributaries; and of the discovery of the lakes Shirwa and Nyassa. -1864. London, J. Murray. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/05015249/.